Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope

Chapter III

Dr Thorne

And thus Dr Thorne became settled for life in the little village of Greshamsbury. As was then the
wont with many country practitioners, and as should be the wont with them all if they consulted their own dignity a
little less and the comforts of their customers somewhat more, he added the business of a dispensing apothecary to that
of a physician. In doing so, he was of course much reviled. Many people around him declared that he could not truly be
a doctor, or, at any rate, a doctor to be so called; and his brethren in the art living round him, though they knew
that his diplomas, degrees, and certificates were all en regle, rather countenanced the report. There was much about
this new-comer which did not endear him to his own profession. In the first place he was a new-comer, and, as such, was
of course to be regarded by other doctors as being de trop. Greshamsbury was only fifteen miles from Barchester, where
there was a regular depot of medical skill, and but eight from Silverbridge, where a properly established physician had
been in residence for the last forty years. Dr Thorne’s predecessor at Greshamsbury had been a humble-minded general
practitioner, gifted with a due respect for the physicians of the county; and he, though he had been allowed to physic
the servants, and sometimes the children of Greshamsbury, had never had the presumption to put himself on a par with
his betters.

Then also, Dr Thorne, though a graduated physician, though entitled beyond all dispute to call himself a doctor,
according to all the laws of the colleges, made it known to the East Barsetshire world, very soon after he had seated
himself at Greshamsbury, that his rate of pay was to be seven-and-sixpence a visit within a circuit of five miles, with
a proportionally increased charge at proportionally increased distances. Now there was something low, mean,
unprofessional, and democratic in this; so, at least, said the children of AEsculapius gathered together in conclave at
Barchester. In the first place, it showed that this Thorne was always thinking of his money, like an apothecary, as he
was; whereas, it would have behoved him, as a physician, had he had the feelings of a physician under his hat, to have
regarded his own pursuits in a purely philosophical spirit, and to have taken any gain which might have accrued as an
accidental adjunct to his station in life. A physician should take his fee without letting his left hand know what his
right hand was doing; it should be taken without a thought, without a look, without a move of the facial muscles; the
true physician should hardly be aware that the last friendly grasp of the hand had been more precious by the touch of
gold. Whereas, that fellow Thorne would lug out half a crown from his breeches pocket and give it in change for a ten
shilling piece. And then it was clear that this man had no appreciation of the dignity of a learned profession. He
might constantly be seen compounding medicines in the shop, at the left hand of his front door; not making experiments
philosophically in materials medica for the benefit of coming ages — which, if he did, he should have done in the
seclusion of his study, far from profane eyes — but positively putting together common powders for rural bowels, or
spreading vulgar ointments for agricultural ailments.

A man of this sort was not fit for society for Dr Fillgrave of Barchester. That must be admitted. And yet he had
been found to be fit society for the old squire of Greshamsbury, whose shoe-ribbons Dr Fillgrave would not have
objected to tie; so high did the old squire stand in the county just previous to his death. But the spirit of the Lady
Arabella was known by the medical profession of Barsetshire, and when that good man died it was felt that Thorne’s
short tenure of Greshamsbury favour was already over. The Barsetshire regulars were, however, doomed to disappointment.
Our doctor had already contrived to endear himself to the heir; and though there was not even much personal love
between him and the Lady Arabella, he kept his place at the great house unmoved, not only in the nursery and in the
bedrooms, but also at the squire’s dining-table.

Now there was in this, it must be admitted, quite enough to make him unpopular with his brethren; and this feeling
was soon shown in a marked and dignified manner. Dr Fillgrave, who had certainly the most respectable professional
connexion in the county, who had a reputation to maintain, and who was accustomed to meet, on almost equal terms, the
great medical baronets from the metropolis at the houses of the nobility — Dr Fillgrave declined to meet Dr Thorne in
consultation. He exceedingly regretted, he said, most exceedingly, the necessity he felt of doing so: he had never
before had to perform so painful a duty; but, as a duty which he owed to his profession, he must perform it. With every
feeling of respect of Lady — — a sick guest at Greshamsbury — and for Mr Gresham, he must decline to attend in
conjunction with Dr Thorne. If his services could be made available under any other circumstances, he would go to
Greshamsbury as fast as post-horses could carry him.

Then, indeed, there was war in Barsetshire. If there was on Dr Thorne’s cranium one bump more developed than
another, it was that of combativeness. Not that the doctor was a bully, or even pugnacious, in the usual sense of the
word; he had no disposition to provoke a fight, no propense love of quarrelling; but there was that in him which would
allow him to yield to no attack. Neither in argument nor in contest would he ever allow himself to be wrong; never at
least to anyone but himself; and on behalf of his special hobbies, he was ready to meet the world at large.

It will therefore be understood, that when such a gauntlet was thus thrown in his very teeth by Dr Fillgrave, he was
not slow to take it up. He addressed a letter to the Barsetshire Conservative Standard, in which he attacked Dr
Fillgrave with some considerable acerbity. Dr Fillgrave responded in four lines, saying that on mature consideration he
had made up his mind not to notice any remarks that might be made on him by Dr Thorne in the public press. The
Greshamsbury doctor then wrote another letter, more witty and much more severe than the last; and as this was copied
into the Bristol, Exeter, and Gloucester papers, Dr Fillgrave found it very difficult to maintain the magnanimity of
his reticence. It is sometimes becoming enough for a Mediterranean to wrap himself in the dignified toga of silence,
and proclaim himself indifferent to public attacks; but it is a sort of dignity which it is very difficult to maintain.
As well might a man, when stung to madness by wasps, endeavour to sit in his chair without moving a muscle, as endure
with patience and without reply the courtesies of a newspaper opponent. Dr Thorne wrote a third letter which was too
much for medical flesh and blood to bear. Dr Fillgrave answered it, not, indeed, in his own name, but in that of a
brother doctor; and then the war raged merrily. It is hardly too much to say that Dr Fillgrave never knew another happy
hour. Had he dreamed of what materials was made that young compounder of doses at Greshamsbury he would have met him in
consultation, morning, noon, and night, without objection; but having begun the war, he was constrained to go on with
it: his brethren would allow him no alternative. Thus he was continually being brought up to the fight, as a
prize-fighter may be seen to be, who is carried up round after round, without any hope on his own part, and who, in
each round, drops to the ground before the very wind of his opponent’s blows.

But Dr Fillgrave, though thus weak himself, was backed in practice and in countenance by nearly all his brethren in
the county. The guinea fee, the principle of giving advice and of selling no medicine, the great resolve to keep a
distinct barrier between the physician and the apothecary, and, above all, the hatred of the contamination of a bill,
were strong in the medical mind of Barsetshire. Dr Thorne had the provincial medical world against him, and so he
appealed to the metropolis. The Lancet took the matter up in his favour, but the Journal of Medical Science was against
him; the Weekly Chirurgeon, noted for its medical democracy, upheld him as a medical prophet, but the Scalping Knife, a
monthly periodical got up in dead opposition to the Lancet, showed him no mercy. So the war went on, and our doctor, to
a certain extent, became a noted character.

He had, moreover, other difficulties to encounter in his professional career. It was something in his favour that he
understood his business; something that he was willing to labour at it with energy; and resolved to labour at it
conscientiously. He had also other gifts, such as conversational brilliancy, and aptitude for true good fellowship,
firmness in friendship, and general honesty of disposition, which stood him in stead as he advanced in life. But, at
his first starting, much that belonged to himself personally was against him. Let him enter what house he would, he
entered it with a conviction, often expressed to himself, that he was equal as a man to the proprietor, equal as a
human being to the proprietress. To age he would allow deference, and to special recognized talent — at least so he
said; to rank also, he would pay that respect which was its clear and recognized prerogative; he would let a lord walk
out of a room before him if he did not happen to forget it; in speaking to a duke he would address him as His Grace;
and he would in no way assume a familiarity with bigger men than himself, allowing to the bigger man the privilege of
making the first advances. But beyond this he would admit that no man should walk the earth with his head higher than
his own.

He did not talk of these things much; he offended no rank by boasts of his own equality; he did not absolutely tell
the Earl de Courcy in words, that the privilege of dining at Courcy Castle was to him no greater than the privilege of
dining at Courcy Parsonage; but there was that in his manner that told it. The feeling in itself was perhaps good, and
was certainly much justified by the manner in which he bore himself to those below him in rank; but there was folly in
the resolution to run counter to the world’s recognized rules on such matters; and much absurdity in his mode of doing
so, seeing that at heart he was a thorough Conservative. It is hardly too much to say that he naturally hated a lord at
first sight; but, nevertheless, he would have expended his means, his blood, and spirit, in fighting for the upper
house of Parliament.

Such a disposition, until it was thoroughly understood, did not tend to ingratiate him with the wives of the country
gentlemen among whom he had to look for practice. And then, also, there was not much in his individual manner to
recommend him to the favour of ladies. He was brusque, authoritative, given to contradiction, rough though never dirty
in his personal belongings, and inclined to indulge in a sort of quiet raillery, which sometimes was not thoroughly
understood. People did not always know whether he was laughing at them or with them; and some people were, perhaps,
inclined to think that a doctor should not laugh at all when called in to act doctorially.

When he was known, indeed, when the core of the fruit had been reached, when the huge proportion of that loving
trusting heart had been learned, and understood, and appreciated, when that honesty had been recognized, that manly,
almost womanly tenderness had been felt, then, indeed, the doctor was acknowledged to be adequate in his
profession.

To trifling ailments he was too often brusque. Seeing that he accepted money for the cure of such, he should, we may
say, have cured them without an offensive manner. So far he is without defence. But to real suffering no one found him
brusque; no patient lying painfully on a bed of sickness ever thought him rough.

Another misfortune was, that he was a bachelor. Ladies think, and I, for one, think that ladies are quite right in
so thinking, that doctors should be married men. All the world feels that a man when married acquires some of the
attributes of the old woman — he becomes, to a certain extent, a motherly sort of being; he acquires a conversance with
women’s ways and women’s wants, and loses the wilder and offensive sparks of his virility. It must be easier to talk to
such a one about Matilda’s stomach, and the growing pains in Fanny’s legs, than to a young bachelor. This impediment
also stood much in Dr Thorne’s way during his first years at Greshamsbury.

But his wants were not at first great; and though his ambition was perhaps high, it was not of an impatient nature.
The world was his oyster; but, circumstanced as he was, he knew that it was not for him to open it with his lancet all
at once. He had bread to earn, which he must earn wearily; he had a character to make, which must come slowly; it
satisfied his soul, that in addition to his immortal hopes, he had a possible future in this world to which he could
look forward with clear eyes, and advance with his heart that would know no fainting.

On his first arrival at Greshamsbury he had been put by the squire into a house, which he still occupied when that
squire’s grandson came of age. There were two decent, commodious, private houses in the village — always excepting the
rectory, which stood grandly in its own grounds, and, therefore, was considered as ranking above the village residences
— of these two Dr Thorne had the smaller. They stood exactly at the angle before described, on the outer side of it,
and at right angles to each other. They possessed good stables and ample gardens; and it may be as well to specify,
that Mr Umbleby, the agent and lawyer to the estate, occupied the larger one.

Here Dr Thorne lived for eleven or twelve years, all alone; and then for ten or eleven more with his niece, Mary
Thorne. Mary was thirteen when she came to take up permanent abode as mistress of the establishment — or, at any rate,
to act as the only mistress which the establishment possessed. This advent greatly changed the tenor of the doctor’s
ways. He had been before pure bachelor; not a room in his house had been comfortably furnished; he at first commenced
in a makeshift sort of way, because he had not at his command the means of commencing otherwise; and he had gone on in
the same fashion, because the exact time had never come at which it was imperative in him to set his house in order. He
had had no fixed hour for his meals, no fixed place for his books, no fixed wardrobe for his clothes. He had a few
bottles of good wine in his cellar, and occasionally asked a brother bachelor to take a chop with him; but beyond this
he had touched very little on the cares of housekeeping. A slop-bowl full of strong tea, together with bread, and
butter, and eggs, was produced for him in the morning, and he expected that at whatever hour he might arrive in the
evening, some food should be presented to him wherewith to satisfy the cravings of nature; if, in addition to this, he
had another slop-bowl of tea in the evening, he got all that he ever required, or all, at least, that he ever
demanded.

But when Mary came, or rather, when she was about to come, things were altogether changed at the doctor’s. People
had hitherto wondered — and especially Mrs Umbleby — how a gentleman like Dr Thorne could continue to live in so
slovenly a manner; and how people again wondered, and again especially Mrs Umbleby, how the doctor could possibly think
it necessary to put such a lot of furniture into a house because a little chit of a girl of twelve years was coming to
live with him.

Mrs Umbleby had great scope for her wonder. The doctor made a thorough revolution in his household, and furnished
his house from the ground to the roof completely. He painted — for the first time since the commencement of his tenancy
— he papered, he carpeted, as though a Mrs Thorne with a good fortune were coming home tomorrow; and all for a girl of
twelve years old. ‘And now,’ said Mrs Umbleby, to her friend Miss Gushing, ‘how did he find out what to buy?’ as though
the doctor had been brought up like a wild beast, ignorant of the nature of tables and chairs, and with no more
developed ideas of drawing-room drapery than an hippopotamus.

To the utter amazement of Mrs Umbleby and Miss Gushing, the doctor did it very well. He said nothing about it to any
one — he never did say much about such things — but he furnished his house well and discreetly; and when Mary Thorne
came home from her school at Bath, to which she had been taken some six years previously, she found herself called upon
to be the presiding genius of a perfect paradise.

It has been said that the doctor had managed to endear himself to the new squire before the old squire’s death, and
that, therefore, the change at Greshamsbury had had no professional ill effects upon him. Such was the case at the
time; but, nevertheless, all did not go smoothly in the Greshamsbury medical department. There was six or seven years’
difference in age between Mr Gresham and the doctor, and moreover, Mr Gresham was young for his age, and the doctor
old; but, nevertheless, there was a very close attachment between them early in life. This was never thoroughly
sundered, and, backed by this the doctor did maintain himself for some years before the artillery of Lady Arabella’s
artillery. But drops falling, if they fall constantly, will bore through a stone.

Dr Thorne’s pretensions, mixed with his subversive professional democratic tendencies, his seven-and-sixpenny
visits, added to his utter disregard of Lady Arabella’s airs, were too much for her spirit. He brought Frank through
his first troubles, and that at first ingratiated her; he was equally successful with the early dietary of Augusta and
Beatrice; but, as his success was obtained in direct opposition to the Courcy Castle nursery principles, this hardly
did much in his favour. When the third daughter was born, he at once declared that she was a very weakly flower, and
sternly forbade the mother to go to London. The mother, loving her babe, obeyed; but did not the less hate the doctor
for the order, which she firmly believed was given at the instance and express dictation of Mr Gresham. Then another
little girl came into the world, and the doctor was more imperative than ever as to the nursery rules and the
excellence of country air. Quarrels were thus engendered, and Lady Arabella was taught to believe that this doctor of
her husband’s was after all no Solomon. In her husband’s absence she sent for Dr Fillgrave, giving very express
intimation that he would not have to wound either his eyes or dignity by encountering his enemy; and she found Dr
Fillgrave a great comfort to her.

Then Dr Thorne gave Mr Gresham to understand that, under such circumstances, he could not visit professionally at
Greshamsbury any longer. The poor squire saw there was no help for it, and though he maintained his friendly connexion
with his neighbour, the seven-and-sixpenny visits were at an end. Dr Fillgrave from Barchester, and the gentleman at
Silverbridge, divided the responsibility between them, and the nursery principles of Courcy Castle were again in vogue
at Greshamsbury.

So things went on for years, and those years were years of sorrow. We must not ascribe to our doctor’s enemies the
sufferings and sickness, and deaths that occurred. The four frail little ones that died would probably have been taken
had Lady Arabella been more tolerant of Dr Thorne. But the fact was, that they did die; and that the mother’s heart
then got the better of the woman’s pride, and Lady Arabella humbled herself before Dr Thorne. She humbled herself, or
would have done so, had the doctor permitted her. But he, with his eyes full of tears, stopped the utterance of her
apology, took her two hands in his, pressed them warmly, and assured her that his joy in returning would be great, for
the love that he bore to all that belonged to Greshamsbury. And so the seven-and-sixpenny visits were recommenced; and
the great triumph of Dr Fillgrave came to an end.

Great was the joy in the Greshamsbury nursery when the second change took place. Among the doctor’s attributes, not
hitherto mentioned, was an aptitude for the society of children. He delighted to talk to children, and to play with
them. He would carry them on his back, three or four at a time, roll with them on the ground, race with them in the
garden, invent games for them, contrive amusements in circumstances which seemed quite adverse to all manner of
delight; and, above all, his physic was not nearly so nasty as that which came from Silverbridge.

He had a great theory as to the happiness of children; and though he was not disposed altogether to throw over the
precepts of Solomon — always bargaining that he should, under no circumstances, be himself the executioner — he argued
that the principal duty which a parent owed to a child was to make him happy. Not only was the man to be made happy —
the future man, if that might be possible — but the existing boy was to be treated with equal favour; and his
happiness, so said the doctor, was of much easier attainment.

‘Why struggle after future advantage at the expense of the present pain, seeing that the results were so very
doubtful?’

Many an opponent of the doctor had thought to catch him on the hip when so singular a doctrine was broached; but
they were not always successful. ‘What!’ said his sensible enemies, ‘is Johnny not to be taught to read because he does
not like it?’ ‘Johnny must read by all means,’ would the doctor answer; ‘but is it necessary that he should not like
it? If the preceptor have it in him, may not Johnny learn not only to read, but to like to learn to read?’

‘But,’ would say his enemies, ‘children must be controlled.’

‘And so must men also,’ would say the doctor. ‘I must not steal your peaches, nor make love to your wife, nor libel
your character. Much as I might wish through my natural depravity to indulge in such vices, I am debarred from them
without pain, and I may almost say without unhappiness.’

And so the argument went on, neither party convincing the other. But, in the meantime, the children of the
neighbourhood became very fond of Dr Thorne.

Dr Thorne and the squire were still fast friends, but circumstances had occurred, spreading themselves now over a
period of many years, which almost made the poor squire uneasy in the doctor’s company. Mr Gresham owed a large sum of
money, and he had, moreover, already sold a portion of his property. Unfortunately it had been the pride of the
Greshams that their acres had descended from one another without an entail, so that each possessor of Greshamsbury had
had the full power to dispose of the property as he pleased. Any doubt as to its going to the male heir had never
hitherto been felt. It had occasionally been encumbered by charges for younger children; but these charges had been
liquidated, and the property had come down without any burden to the present squire. Now a portion of this land had
been sold, and it had been sold to a certain degree through the agency of Dr Thorne.

This made the squire an unhappy man. No man loved his family name and honour, his old family blazon and standing
more thoroughly than he did; he was every whit a Gresham at heart; but his spirit had been weaker than that of his
forefathers; and, in his days, for the first time, the Greshams were going to the wall! Ten years before the beginning
of our story it had been necessary to raise a large sum of money to meet and pay off pressing liabilities, and it was
found that this could be done with more material advantage by selling a portion of the property than in any other way.
A portion of it, about a third of the whole in value, was accordingly sold.

Boxall Hill lay half between Greshamsbury and Barchester, and was known as having the best partridge shooting in the
county; as having on it also a celebrated fox cover, Boxall Gorse, held in very high repute by Barsetshire sportsmen.
There was no residence on the immediate estate, and it was altogether divided from the remained of the Greshamsbury
property. This, with many inward and outward groans, Mr Gresham permitted to be sold.

It was sold, and sold well, by private contract to a native of Barchester, who, having risen from the world’s ranks,
had made for himself great wealth. Somewhat of this man’s character must hereafter be told; it will suffice to say that
he relied for advice in money matters upon Dr Thorne, and that at Dr Thorne’s suggestion he had purchased Boxall Hill,
partridge-shooting and gorse cover all included. He had not only bought Boxall Hill, but had subsequently lent the
squire large sums of money on mortgage, in all which transactions the doctor had taken part. It had therefore come to
pass that Mr Gresham was not infrequently called upon to discuss his money affairs with Dr Thorne, and occasionally to
submit to lectures and advice which might perhaps as well have been omitted.

So much for Dr Thorne. A few words must still be said about Miss Mary Thorne before we rush into our story; the
crust will then have been broken, and the pie will be open to the guests. Little Miss Mary was kept at a farm-house
till she was six; she was then sent to school at Bath, and transplanted to the doctor’s newly furnished house, a little
more than six years after that. It must not be supposed that he had lost sight of his charge during her earlier years.
He was much too well aware of the nature of the promise which he had made to the departing mother to do that. He had
constantly visited his little niece, and long before the first twelve years of her life were over had lost
consciousness of his promise, and of his duty to the mother, in the stronger ties of downright personal love for the
only creature that belonged to him.

When Mary came home the doctor was like a child in his glee. He prepared surprises for her with as much forethought
and trouble as though he were contriving mines to blow up an enemy. He took her first into the shop, and then into the
kitchen, thence to the dining-rooms, after that to his and her bedrooms, and so on till he came to the full glory of
the new drawing-room, enhancing the pleasure by little jokes, and telling her that he should never dare to come into
the last paradise without her permission, and not then till he had taken off his boots. Child as she was, she
understood the joke, and carried it on like a little queen; and so they soon became the firmest of friends.

But though Mary was queen, it was still necessary that she should be educated. Those were the earlier days in which
Lady Arabella had humbled herself, and to show her humility she invited Mary to share the music-lessons of Augusta and
Beatrice at the great house. A music-master from Barchester came over three times a week, and remained for three hours,
and if the doctor chose to send his girl over, she could pick up what was going on without doing any harm. So said the
Lady Arabella. The doctor with many thanks and with no hesitation, accepted the offer, merely adding, that he had
perhaps better settle separately with Signor Cantabili, the music-master. He was very much obliged to Lady Arabella for
giving his little girl permission to join her lessons to those of the Miss Greshams.

It need hardly be said that the Lady Arabella was on fire at once. Settle with Signor Cantabili! No, indeed; she
would do that; there must be no expense whatever incurred in such an arrangement on Miss Thorne’s account! But here, as
in most things, the doctor carried his point. It being the time of the lady’s humility, she could not make as good a
fight as she would otherwise have done; and thus she found, to her great disgust, that Mary Thorne was learning music
in her schoolroom on equal terms, as regarded payment, with her own daughters. The arrangement having been made could
not be broken, especially as the young lady in nowise made herself disagreeable; and more especially as the Miss
Greshams themselves were very fond of her.

And so Mary Thorne learnt music at Greshamsbury, and with her music she learnt other things also; how to behave
herself among girls of her own age; how to speak and talk as other young ladies do; how to dress herself, and how to
move and walk. All which, she being quick to learn without trouble at the great house. Something also she learnt of
French, seeing that the Greshamsbury French governess was always in the room.

And then some few years later, there came a rector, and a rector’s sister; and with the latter Mary studied German
and French also. From the doctor himself she learnt much; the choice, namely, of English books for her own reading, and
habits of thought somewhat akin to his own, though modified by the feminine softness of her individual mind.

And so Mary Thorne grew up and was educated. Of her personal appearance it certainly is my business as an author to
say something. She is my heroine, and, as such, must necessarily be very beautiful; but, in truth, her mind and inner
qualities are more clearly distinct to my brain than her outward form and features. I know that she was far from being
tall, and far from being showy; that her feet and hands were small and delicate; that her eyes were bright when looked
at, but not brilliant so as to make their brilliancy palpably visible to all around her; her hair was dark brown, and
worn very plainly brushed from her forehead; her lips were thin, and her mouth, perhaps, in general inexpressive, but
when she was eager in conversation it would show itself to be animated with curves of wondrous energy; and, quiet as
she was in manner, sober and demure as was her usual settled appearance, she could talk, when the fit came on her, with
an energy which in truth surprised those who did not know her; aye, and sometimes those who did. Energy! nay, it was
occasionally a concentration of passion, which left her for the moment perfectly unconscious of all other cares but
solicitude for that subject which she might then be advocating.

All her friends, including the doctor, had at times been made unhappy by this vehemence of character; but yet it was
to that very vehemence that she owed it that all her friends loved her. It had once nearly banished her in early years
from the Greshamsbury schoolroom; and yet it ended in making her claim to remain there so strong, that Lady Arabella
could no longer oppose it, even when she had the wish to do so.

A new French governess had lately come to Greshamsbury, and was, or was to be, a great pet with Lady Arabella,
having all the great gifts with which a governess can be endowed, and being also a protege from the castle. The castle,
in Greshamsbury parlance, always meant that of Courcy. Soon after this a valued little locket belonging to Augusta
Gresham was missing. The French governess had objected to its being worn in the schoolroom, and it had been sent up to
the bedroom by a young servant-girl, the daughter of a small farmer on the estate. The locket was missing, and after a
while, a considerable noise in the matter having been made, was found, by the diligence of the governess, somewhere
among the belongings of the English servant. Great was the anger of Lady Arabella, loud were the protestations of the
girl, mute the woe of her father, piteous the tears of her mother, inexorable the judgment of the Greshamsbury world.
But something occurred, it matters now not what, to separate Mary Thorne in opinion from that world at large. Out she
then spoke, and to her face accused the governess of the robbery. For two days Mary was in disgrace almost as deep as
that of the farmer’s daughter. But she was neither quiet or dumb in her disgrace. When Lady Arabella would not hear
her, she went to Mr Gresham. She forced her uncle to move in the matter. She gained over to her side, one by one, the
potentates of the parish, and ended by bringing Mam’selle Larron down on her knees with a confession of the facts. From
that time Mary Thorne was dear to the tenantry of Greshamsbury; and specially dear to one small household, where a
rough-spoken father of a family was often heard to declare, that for Miss Mary Thorne he’d face man or magistrate, duke
or devil.

And so Mary Thorne grew up under the doctor’s eye, and at the beginning of our tale she was one of the guests
assembled at Greshamsbury on the coming of age of the heir, she herself having then arrived at the same period of her
life.